Belief in evolution boils down to a gut feeling

This research backs up what I've believed for a while, which is: most people who accept evolution do so for the same reasons that people who reject it, reject it. Basically: intuition, which is a terrible guide to what is true and what is not.

You might think that people who believe the truth do so for good reasons, but no. Everybody believes what they believe for bad reasons.

An excerpt from the article:

The researchers first asked the students a series of questions to measure their overall acceptance of evolution, teasing out whether they generally believed the main concept sand scientific findings that define the theory of evolution. Next, they tested the students on their knowledge of evolutionary science with questions about various processes, such as natural selection. For each question, the students wrote down how certain they felt about the correctness of their answers — an indicator of their gut feelings.

They found that intuition had a significant impact on what the students accepted, no matter how much they knew and regardless of their religious beliefs. Even students with a greater knowledge of evolutionary facts weren't more likely to accept the theory unless they also had a strong gut feeling about the facts, the results showed.

The study has important implications for the teaching of evolution, the researchers said. Informing students about this conflict between intuition and logic may help them judge ideas on their merits.